Person of the Week: Rustem Adagamov

On 29 April 2016 prominent blogger Rustem Adagamov was ordered by Moscow City Court to pay the news channel Russia Today (RT) 500,000 roubles (approximately $8,000) for defamation, Meduza has reported. According to Meduza, Adagamov wrote on his blog a statement alleging that Russia Today 'invents news'. The news outlet, citing Interfax, quotes the offending statement as saying: 'Look at how Russia Today creates news from nothing.' Meduza reports that Adagamov told the news website Tjournal that he was unaware of the legal case against him. According to sources cited by Meduza, Moscow City Court has ordered Adagamov to publish a refutation of his statement about Russia Today. Russia Today has asked that Adagamov pay damages of 500,000 roubles plus legal costs.

As Meduza points out, Adagamov is not the first commentator to allege that Russia Today has published inaccurate news reports. In a 2015 court case, the the UK's media regulator Ofcom ruled that Russia Today had wrongly accused the BBC of faking a report, and that elements of a news item broadcast by Russia Today were 'materially misleading.'